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Who Is The Gun Lobby? Me For Sure; Maybe You Too?

Seizing upon public shock and outrage over the monstrous and senseless tragedy in Newton, Diane Feinstein (D-CA) wasted no time introducing a Senate proposal intended to expand the definition of privately-prohibited firearms far beyond any previous restrictions, potentially including most handguns used for self-defense, competitive and recreational purposes. Her bill was one of eight seeking tighter gun controls introduced by Democrats on Day One of the 113th Congress.

In doing so, Senator Feinstein, a former concealed gun-carrier, conveniently exploits rampant political and media confusion between military automatic weapons and domestic U.S. semi-automatic firearms which operate very differently (one trigger pull…only one “bang”). In fact, the vast majority of all U.S. firearms, both handguns and rifles, are semi-automatic. And while some of the latter may look like automatic military-style machine guns, the similarities are primarily cosmetic.

At minimum, the proposed legislation will prohibit all models of the AR-15, including those developed for compliance with California’s already highly restrictive ban. It also expands the definition of “assault weapon” to include three very popular rifles, including the M1 Carbine introduced in 1944, any semi-automatic, any centerfire, or rimfire rifle that is less than 30 inches long, and those with a fixed magazine with the capacity to accept more than 10 rounds (except for tubular-magazine .22s).

The ban will also apply to any semi-automatic handgun with a fixed magazine and a capacity to accept more than 10 rounds. Semi-automatic pistols with detachable magazines are the most popular handguns in use today, and most can accommodate more than 10 rounds. Of the nearly 1,000 firearms Senator Feinstein exempts by name, the list doesn’t contain a single handgun.

Cheered on by media pals who have joined his attack on those who resist, President Obama has recently bypassed congressional approval with 23 executive orders on gun control. CBScorrespondent Bob Schieffer characterized those actions as a “turning point” in our country, where: “Surely, finding Osama bin Laden; surely, passing civil rights legislation, as Lyndon Johnson was able to do; and before that, surely, defeating the Nazis, was a much more formidable task than taking on the gun lobby.”

So fighting the gun lobby, presumably headed by the NRA, is like doing battle with the Nazi’s? Has Schieffer forgotten that the Nazi’s confiscated private guns, beginning with those owned by the Jews? This was after the Germans told them not to worry…the government would protect them.

Tom Brokaw chimed in on the civil rights analogy. Speaking to MSNBC’s Al Sharpton, he said: “Rev. Al, it reminds me a lot of what happened in the South in the 1960s during the civil rights movement. Good people stayed in their houses and didn’t speak up when there was carnage in the streets and the total violation of fundamental rights of African-Americans as they marched in Selma, and they let Bull Connor and the redneck elements of the South and the Klan take over their culture in effect and become a face of it.”

It might be instructive to know that early legislation to restrict guns in the 19th century often involved placement of high taxes and bans on inexpensive guns in southern states to prevent purchases by poor Blacks and Whites. Later, as even anti-gun journalist Robert Sherrill admits in his book The Saturday Night Special (1972), the Gun Control Act of 1968 was “passed not to control guns, but to control Blacks, and inasmuch as a majority of Congress did not want to do the former, but were ashamed to show that their goal was the latter, the result was that they did neither.”

The original Act was actually a combination of two laws. The original part was passed to control handguns after the assignation of Reverend Martin Luther King using a rifle. Ironically, that law was subsequently repealed and re-passed to include control of rifles after Robert F. Kennedy was shot with a handgun. Enacted by President Lyndon Johnson, the combined legislation asserted federal authority to regulate the firearms industry and private owners using interstate commerce powers.

The Richmond Housing Authority imposed a city ban on all firearms in 1990 that was upheld by the Virginia Supreme Court. Maine passed a similar law in 1995 that was struck down by state courts that same year. Oregon and Washington state legislatures unsuccessfully filed the same types of legislative proposals in 1994, as did the Clinton administration in its failed plan that year to ban guns in all federal public housing which was defeated in the House Banking Committee.

Does anyone else detect any indication of discrimination here…or is it just my imagination running wild? Admittedly, this is a radical notion. Just about everyone knows that liberal legislators are famously intolerant of any elitist double standard in this regard. This would imply they believe that public housing doesn’t really qualify as “home”.

Accordingly, “Progressives” continue to argue that the use of deadly force should be restricted to police and army personnel, and that ordinary citizens simply can’t be trusted to play any role in maintaining law and order, including protection of family lives and property.

Are there areas of possible common ground where the Obama administration and members of that infamous “gun lobby” can come together? Probably so, particularly since that gun lobby is made up of many very sensible and reasonable individuals. Being White, living in the South (admittedly, I plead guilty to both offenses), or belonging to a survivalist group (like the Conservative academic I am), aren’t absolute prerequisites…and it’s perfectly okay to really care a lot about children…even grownups, of all races.

If there’s one general trait that most members of the gun lobby share, perhaps it’s the awareness that gun control legislation is a slippery slope inevitably leading to a sacrifice of even broader constitutionally-guaranteed American freedoms. Surrendering to emotional manipulation at the cost of an individual liberty advances us only in a perpetual slide towards the tyranny our forefathers wisely anticipated.

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